Monday Morning Quarterback: UC Men's Lacrosse

The root word for redemption is redeem, to redeem something means to clear by payment. And The Pioneers without question feel they have unfinished business after a 2-14 record last year. Senior Mick Kerjacic says, "It's the payback tour, we lost, we have pretty much the same schedule as last yea and we lost a lot of close games like I mentioned earlier. We want those games back and they mean something to us this year. A whole year to mature and are actually getting in the weight room, we have a great strength coach that coach got for us this year and he's really put a little extra motivation and more of a chip on our shoulder."

Last year's team was plagued by the illness of youth. Now this year's team is older and that experience is paying dividends. Plus team camaraderie is a positive side-effect of last year. Assistant Coach Nick Evanoff says, "The Chemistry and the tightness of this team, they're truly a family. We break a huddle we say family and before you'd think it was just one work but this team is really means it. These guys just, they're with each other all the time, they'd do anything for each other and it's good to see." Junior Justin Edelstein added, "It's unbelievable, every day you walk in that locker room with your best friends. Umm we have each other's back, if we're down by a couple goals or up by a couple goals it doesn't matter we need each other."

One game that the pioneers say brought them closer together was an overtime thriller against Kings College. 7 year Head Coach Mike Parnell says, "You know there's a lot more things you can learn from, mistakes that are easily correctable on film and in the practice field. And they'll have that experience with them going forward into league play where all of our games are going to be tight games and we'll be able to draw from that."